Boy, it has been a while, hasn’t it, Dear Reader? I apologize for that. I wish I could make up for it with a shocking revelation about my personal life, but uh…life is good. Everything is still going smoothly, praise the Lord, so any kind of anecdotal diatribe would make for a stupendously boring post. Caroline’s in town, so hopefully we’ll get to spend quality time with her, but the girl’s got a heck of a social agenda (surprise, surprise), so we won’t be catching up with her until tomorrow morning. You know how I hate talking about myself, anyway, it’s so dull. How ironic coming from me, I know.
Many interesting things to discuss outside my personal life, however!
-DLC. I’ve been meaning to bring this up for those of you who care about video games. Have any of you noticed the kind of ugly shift download-able content has taken in recent months? It used to be the closest thing I’d experienced to Manna from Heaven a la Exodus—you’d be playing a game to death and suddenly, more game would appear! Recently, though, the whole thing has taken a turn for the nasty, and the worst part is that respectable game developers are spurring it on.
Exhibit A, Bungie. I love Bungie, but they have violated the trust of their community. I mean it sounds great, right? New multiplayer maps all the time, constant updates and tweaks, what could be better? Problem is, someone like me can’t afford to keep spending five or ten dollars on two maps every time Microsoft feels like buying some new loafers, (especially when I already dropped sixty for the retail) so I don’t buy the stuff. And what’s this I find? I log onto multiplayer, and I can no longer play half the game modes, because they “require DLC.” What used to be a bonus is now extortion. I even tolerated this when it was one or two game modes, but right now a standard retail copy of “Halo 3″ will permit you to play maybe half of the material you paid for. That is absolutely unconscionable. DLC should be a way to enhance the experience, and instead they used it to pump their fan base for more cash and punish those unwilling to play ball.
What’s worse? A few months later they drop “Halo 3: ODST.” Now ODST’s a fun game, but there’s a reason we were all shocked to discover it carried a full retail price tag: it’s not a whole new game. Valve boycotters, who were big babies by the way, should have had a field day with this product. Say what you will about “Left 4 Dead 2,” but at least it could credibly be dubbed a sequel. ODST is a brief campaign and one additional game mode. Sixty dollars. And don’t feed me a line about playing as a new character, Bungie, because the differences are minimal and nearly all of them involved you removing things: double-wielding, jacking certain vehicles, ability to take significant damage, etc. There are no new weapons, no new enemies, no new vehicles, it’s the same exact game with tweaks at best. You should be ashamed of yourselves for charging what you did, I really expect better from you guys.
Exhibit B, Valve. Much less serious offenses, but there’s no question that 4 v 4 matchmaking and the ability to play versus in all four campaigns do not count as quality DLC, since they should have been in the retail game. Survival Mode is an afterthought, and there’s hardly any reason to play it. You did all right with Crash Course, so that’s one mark in your favor. One. You told us months of support were coming, we got one really substantive addition. The boycott of “Left 4 Dead 2″ was stupid because that product is well worth the money. A boycott of “Left 4 Dead” the original might have made more sense (although I still would not have participated).
And yeah, it’s a bit dodgy that you’re releasing a sequel this soon, at the same time that Bungie and Bioware (your compatriots in the champagne room of game design) also start acting suspect (some traveling guest speaker must be selling all of you on Gordon Gekko ethics). But you know what? You also gave us “The Orange Box,” you talked Microsoft into making the Survival Pack free, and “Left 4 Dead” is still the best cooperative shooter ever, period. You guys get a pass. Those pissy fans of yours who tied their panties in a knot over nothing don’t know how good they have it, they should ask “Halo” players what real suffering is.
Exhibit C, Bioware. Since they don’t usually tread into multiplayer, Bioware has thus far avoided the DLC scandals. With the advent of “Dragon Age: Origins,” however, the fishiness begins. They package a code to redeem some extra stuff for free with each disc, and I suppose the idea is to punish GameStop for cutting them out of the profit circle via trade-ins. While I theoretically support punishment of GameStop by any and all means, I don’t think they set a good precedent by holding back material that could have gone on the disc for malicious purposes. They’re wielding DLC like a sword, turning it from benevolent to judgmental.
And then comes the matter of the other DLC package, which everyone minus the Special Edition junkies will have to pony up for. What to make of this? Technically I suppose it’s not that different from any other DLC, except that it’s simultaneous with launch. I never realized how intrinsically I assumed that bonus content was a “down the road” affair, a second wind for software that was puttering out. Something about paying $60 for a piece of entertainment during a recession only to discover you didn’t get quite everything feels…mean. Calloused. But maybe I’m overreacting.
In other news, my movie is done. If you’d like to see it, let me know, and we’ll work out some way for you to see it. As a warning, it’s a little disturbing. You’ve been advised.
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